In U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,887,624 and 3,952,068, R. M. Gipson, F. E. Bentley and J. G. Milligan describe vinylidene alcohol compositions having improved properties for surfactant uses as compared to similar prior linear alcohol-based surfactants and prior highly branched alcohol-based surfactants. In addition to primary vinylidene alcohols, these patents disclose ethoxylates of vinylidene alcohols having the formula R.sub.z ""--(OC.sub.2 H.sub.4).sub.w --OH where z is the number of carbon atoms in the alkyl group, R"", and w is 7 to 15 and preferably 7 to 12, and represents the average number of oxyethylene groups present in the ethoxylate. Stressed in the patents is the desirability of having the ratio of w to z within the range of 0.685 to 0.755, and also of having z equal to 13 and w in the range of 9 to 10. These two patent disclosures are fully incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
In commonly-owned copending application Ser. No. 08/493,189 filed Jun. 20, 1995, our colleagues J. D. Sauer, E. F. Zaweski, M. E. Tuvell, F. E. Trowbridge and D. W. Bunch have described certain double-tailed alcohol ether sulfates and their uses, including results on a formulation of this invention.
The double-tailed alcohol ether sulfates of our colleagues have desirable properties and utilities. For example, those double-tailed sulfates are better suited than linear alcohol ether sulfates for use in "gel"-type and transparent/translucent products. Presumably this is due to the ability of those double-tailed sulfates to form a gel rather than a crystalline precipitate when their concentration in water is increased. An object of this invention is to provide formulations of the double-tailed alcohol ether sulfates of our colleagues having enhanced properties and utilities so that the full potential of such sulfates for general purpose detergent usage is improved.